Skate sharpening is normally accomplished with an apparatus that includes a narrow grinding wheel disposed with its axis vertical and its wheel horizontal. The ice skate to be sharpened is mounted in a clamp with its blade horizontal and positioned with the center of the blade at the same elevation as the center of the wheel. After being sharpened, an ice contacting surface of a blade is ideally concave when viewed in cross section. Any loss of integrity of this concave surface will drastically reduce the efficiency of the skate. Thus, if a skater happens to step on a small rock or hard protrusion, the blade could be damaged to an extent of requiring re-sharpening. One solution is to use a hand-held sharpener to dress the damaged blade.
Various hand-held ice skate blade sharpeners are known. U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,240 discloses a device that consists of a holder having a first elongated slot slightly larger than the width of a skate blade and a honing stone with a convex outer surface mounted in the bottom of the slot. On the opposite side is a second slot with a honing stone mounted against one wall leaving a width slightly greater than the width of a skate blade so that after sharpening the blade by running it along the stone in the first slot, the blade can be deburred by inserting it into the second slot and pressing the blade against the stone. The skate blade is then removed, the blade reversed and the process repeated. Because of the relatively small depth of the first slot, it is difficult to ensure that the blade is parallel to the sides of the first slot. Consequently, it is difficult to achieve accurate sharpening of the blade. Similarly, it is necessary for a user to gauge whether or not the blade is parallel to the stone surface in the second slot and to debur each side wall of the blade separately without abrading the bottom edges of the blade.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved portable skate blade sharpener. It is a further object of the invention to provide a skate blade sharpener which can debur both side walls of the blade simultaneously.